That’s certainly true for Facebook. In the last few days I’ve noticed the recommendations box on some Pages has changed slightly. Perhaps you’ve seen the addition of the rating stars?

Definitely an improvement for many businesses, it will be interesting to see how popular it becomes with users.

In fact, if you’re a client of our website design company fairly marvellous – why not post your own little rating on our Facebook page? It’s on the right, just below “Recent Posts by Others.”

Please be nice…

Tomi Tapio K via Compfight

Ah, the thorny subject of WordPress SEO. When it comes to websites, there are few areas where there is less confusion, poppycock and opportunity for money-grabbing scams than “search engine optimisation”.

And I have to admit, it is an area that really doesn’t excite me. With recent Google algorithm updates (buzzwords: Panda and Penguin!) I’ve been so pleased to see more and more emphasis on sites having good content and good social reputations. When I search for something on Google, I want relevant and useful results, and the death of keyword stuffing and link farms has made the results much better.

So now, when clients come to us asking if we can “sort out their WordPress SEO”, we’re happy to tell them that we ensure our websites have no barriers to good ranking – but it’s all about their content.

Sure, we can help. We usually install the famous Yoast plugin but recently we’ve had our heads turned by a newcomer. We’ve been playing with Squirrly.

Squirlly WordPress SEO

So what’s so good about Squirrly, apart from the cute squirrel motif?

It’s easy to use – as simple as that.

When you start a new post, some new boxes appear to help you select your keywords. You are helped to pick keywords that are popular but with low competition.It will help you find pictures to use and other blogs to read for research.

Then, as you type, the boxes ensure your article is optimised for those keywords. If you’ve got everything right, there is a satisfying set of green boxes down the side of your screen. If you’ve missed something out, you’ll spot the red box with simple to understand tips on how to fix it.

So you concentrate on writing good quality content and, when the boxes have ticked themselves, you get a nice, reassuring green bar appear at the top of your WordPress screen:

Meanwhile, off your blog, you can receive some excellent daily coaching tips to help you get more from the system and support is excellent.

Yes, it costs money. But it’s a fraction of the cost of something like Scribe Content. It’s also a monthly subscription model, which effectively forces the authors to keep their users happy and their plugin up-to-date, otherwise they don’t get paid. There’s a 14 day free trial and if you want to stick with free, you can use it on one blog for writing up to two posts a month.

Ultimately, only you can judge the value of sorting your WordPress SEO, so try it out – Squirrly website – Squirrly on WordPress

Someone at the Friends Reunited twitter account made a pretty sick judgement call, as you can see from this screenshot:

It smacks of cashing in on a trending topic, which was just plain disgusting. You may notice I haven’t referred to the events in this article so I’m not guilty of the same!

And I was about to rant about it but checked their feed first, to see some pretty quick action had been taken:

I’m a cynical chap, but not so cynical as to think this was all part of a plan. But I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for more twitter mistakes!

You can keep up-to-date at http://www.google.com/appsstatus - although it did take a while for them to report the initial problem – which left a little to be desired – maybe their access was down!?

Unsurprisingly, the usual chorus of naysayers were vocal on twitter and no doubt the blogs will be full of comments about how this all proves how terrible an idea the cloud is.

Credit: Google

Actually, it just reinforces my faith in using the cloud, and Google Apps in particular.

You see, I’ve worked in big companies that host their own email servers. And I’ve seen what happens when a server crashes. One or two people get very stressed trying to sort it out. A simple outage was rarely shorter than an hour, something significant, like a big hardware failure – a day or two. You might have to wait for parts to arrive or a particular kind of engineer.

That was big companies. Since then I’ve seen small companies be without their email for days, because of a power failure over Christmas or because they found out the backup wasn’t working.

Now I’m powerless to help fix the problem. But I know there is a big team of experts at Google Apps, with probably more resources than any other company, working on that problem. And they are there 24x7x52. A level of service I could never offer my customers.

So I can assure some concerned clients it’s not just them, go and put the kettle on and know that people far cleverer than me are going to have Google Apps fixed very soon.

Tea, anyone?

Dear Geek,

We have had our NetGear router for many years now. Do you think we need to upgrade? Would a new router be better?

As we have AOL only certain routers work.

What do you think?

Hopeful of Herne Bay.

Dear Hopeful,

First of all, as AOL are just providing you with the same service as BT down the same bit of copper, you should be able to use any router that will work with a normal telephone connection. It’s just a matter of ensuring you use the correct ADSL settings for AOL. Of course, AOL may prefer otherwise – the fewer routers their helpdesk need to support the cheaper it is to run.

The exception to this rule is Sky Broadband – they will not let you have the ADSL username and password to use your own router. There are ways around it but not for the faint-hearted.

Any way, back to the real issue. Should you upgrade?

There is one very important phrase to always take into account when considering an upgrade…

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

…which leads to the question – why do you want to upgrade?

• You want to improve your wireless signal.
  This can be a good reason – old routers tend to be the 802.11g or 802.11b if very old. The newer 802.11n routers offer faster wireless speeds and better signal strength.
• You want extra features, like printer or file sharing.
  Personally, I would rather invest in a network printer / storage device than deal with the hassle of working around the idiosyncrasies of different routers and relying on them working with your particular PC and printer etc. 
• The router often needs to be rebooted or loses connection.
  Another good reason, these symptoms often point to a dying router. But check for other issues first – try replacing your microfilter (or replace it with an ADSL faceplate), consider the length & quality of your telephone extension (in fact, avoid using an extension altogether).
• Your broadband is slow.
  While this can be improved by a newer router, it can just as easily result in the opposite! It’s far more important to look at the microfilter, faceplate and line quality issues first. Also, try a few tests with something like speedtest.net to see if it’s actually time of day related, so you can point the finger at ISP issues.

What about upgrading the firmware?

If you know enough to ask that question then you are probably capable of giving it a go. It may make improvements, but sometimes firmware updates are only released to fix very esoteric problems.

Just make sure you backup your router settings and have a copy of the original firmware to put back if things go wrong before you upgrade. Remember, if you break (or “brick”) your router, you won’t be able to get online to download a fix.

So you have decided you want a new router…

• You can get a very good router for around £35 (we quite like the ones TP-Link are making at the moment).
• Make sure you have your ADSL username and password ready from your provider – this is sometimes the same as your email account details but not always. Your ISP should have told you them when you signed up but should also happily tell you over the phone. Unless you are with Sky, of course. To be honest, I think ADSL usernames and passwords are pointless, but I don’t have enough influence over such matters!
• Check all the settings on your current router so you know what to set on the new one. Look out for things like IP address ranges, port forwarding, wireless security.
• If you are hiring your local geek to carry out the upgrade it can take anything from a quick half-hour to a more complicated hour or more if you have a particularly complex network setup.
• Some particularly friendly geeks may even let you borrow a router to see how it performs.

Final tip

Keep your old router somewhere safe – it’s always good to have a backup to revert to!

And good luck  

Jeff Keyzer

Earlier this evening I sat down to contemplate my 60 seconds for tomorrow morning’s BNI. Indeed, one of the comments I often get when inviting people along, or talking about the meetings, is “how on earth can you stand up and talk in front of all those people?”

It’s actually very easy, and was even easier to put into perspective when I received this message from Ellie, one of our clients…

As you are probably aware it is the 25th Anniversary of Red Nose Day. My wonderful friend Mary (who is severly sight impaired, completely blind in left eye and hardly any sight in right eye) has put herself forward to Stand Up if you Dare – Its You on 14th March at the Trinity Theatre in Tunbridge Wells. This is being organised by Radio Kent/Sussex.

 

She will do a 2 minute Stand Up Comedy performance and this will be recorded and put onto radio at a later date. They will be filming it as well and some of it will be used on 15th March. They will also use some radio/tv recordings they have done of the participants over the next couple of weeks to give an idea of who is taking part.

How amazing is that?

To add to all that, on her sponsorship page, Mary says this:

All of my thanks has to go to Ellie, without whom there would not be such a brilliant response! Despite having a lung condition and clinical depression, she has selflessly gone out of her way to gather sponsorship, and deal with the technical side of publicising the entire event. All I have to do, is stand on a stage and talk.

So, here are two people who have more than enough going on in their lives, but still having the courage to go that bit further to raise money for a good cause.

Please, you may not know these people but you do know what they are raising money for, so please add some money to the pot?

Sponsor Mary now!

And as for my 60 seconds? I think I’ll donate that to helping get this message out…

A couple of weeks ago, Jim (our Canterbury Electrician), gave a talk in his “Education Slot” about the importance of preparing your 60 seconds. Each week, each member has 60 seconds to remind the other members, and visitors, of what they do and what kind of work they are looking for. Obviously, they get other opportunities, but that 60 seconds is an important part of it.

Now, some people will come up with the same 60 seconds week in, week out, and the trouble with this is people will naturally switch off. Including the person saying it. The other approach is thinking of the 60 seconds on the way there in their car or, even worse, during the previous member’s slot. And you know what? If you make something up that quick, everyone can tell!

It’s important to put aside just a few minutes each week to think about your 60 and what you are going to ask for. Which made me think of my 10 minute presentation the week before…

I had spent 10 minutes giving all the members in the room some tips on using Facebook to promote their business. I then hogged at least another 5-10 minutes of the meeting answering lots of questions. A few members asked “how do you think of things to post?”

So it occurred to me, if you are putting a few minutes aside for your 60 seconds, rather than just use it at the next BNI meeting, why not post it on Facebook, Twitter and even LinkedIn too? Then you have at least one fresh thing to post each week.

Plus, if you tag your post – for example, on Twitter I’m going to tag mine #BNI #my60 – your followers may ask you what this BNI thing is. When you explain, you can invite them to visit, and the lifeblood of any BNI group is visitors.

* social media presence: horrible buzzwords used by “social media gurus” but I couldn’t think of a better term, any ideas?

No, this is nothing to do with shavers, it’s even more boring than that. It’s about gadget insurance. If you want to skip the boring part and jump to the moral of this story, feel free.

Late last year I was a proud owner of a Nokia Lumia 800. A very nice phone that hadn’t cost me a penny – I just signed my life (or two years of it) away to my mobile provider. Many of the things I liked about it was how tough it seemed. I dropped it a few times but there was never a scratch to tell the tale. This should have set alarm bells ringing – why did I keep dropping it and what would happen if it did break?

Well, the inevitable did take place, I dropped it and the screen smashed. And it wasn’t covered by any insurance. Searching around, I could get it repaired but as Google had just launched the Nexus 4 for little more than the repair cost, I didn’t see much point. It’s just more than a little annoying to know I was contracted to be paying for a dead phone for the next 2 years.

I wrote it off to stupidity and thought nothing more of it, until last week when I was chatting to a client. He had just had to buy a new mobile for his distraught daughter. She had had a lovely new iPhone 5 and dropped it, and it being such a new device, the repair cost was huge.

He then told me he had learnt his lesson and bought insurance through ProtectYourBubble – it was costing him less than his mobile operator would charge and included loss as well as accidental damage. And it was only when I started showing him my flash new phone I realised I still hadn’t done anything sensible about protecting it.

Yes, I’d bought a lovely 99p cover from eBay, but that wasn’t going to protect me from everything. I went off to the website and arranged cover for my phone and my tablet and I sleep safer. And because I was so impressed, I decided to add it to the Things the Geek Loves.

And the moral of the story?

Insure your gadgets!

So, not only have I decided to use ProtectYourBubble to insure my mobile and tablet, I like the product so much I’ve added the link to my website. If you buy from them you’ll get great cover and I’ll get a little thank you from them – just sharing the love.

The next 2 weeks I will be posting this, and please once you have done it please post done! Those of you who do not keep my information from going out to the public, I will have to DELETE YOU! I want to stay PRIVATELY connected with you. I post shots of my family that I don’t want strangers to have access to!!! However, with the recent changes in Facebook, the “public” can now see activities on ANY wall. This happens when our friends click “like” or “comment”… automatically, their friends would see our posts too. Unfortunately, we cannot change this setting by ourselves because Facebook has configured it that way. PLEASE place your mouse over my name above (DO NOT CLICK), a window will appear, now move the mouse on “FRIENDS” (also without clicking), then down to “Settings”, click here and a list will appear. REMOVE the CHECK on “LIFE EVENTS” “STATUS UPDATES” “PHOTOS” and “COMMENTS & LIKES”. By doing this, my activity among my friends and family will no longer become public. Now, copy and paste this on your wall. Once I see this posted on your page, I will do the same.

Lots of you, yes?

Well, I’m sorry, but this is another hoax. This does nothing to keep your posts private. It just stops your friends from seeing your updates automatically. The person who came up with this is playing a nasty little trick by taking advantage of our privacy fears.

So how do I control my Facebook privacy?

The easiest way to explain this is to show you, so I’ve uploaded a little video. Don’t worry, it’s just a screencast, I have a face for radio…

(Best viewed in Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10151243502982327)

…and some may say a voice for print.

For those who have already asked – I used screenr to capture the video and the rather lovely microphone I use is the Snowball Ice.

Happy Facebooking everyone!

Cold turkey for me, please.

About a year ago I went cold turkey with my email and stopped using Outlook. As a Google Apps user, my Outlook synchronised really nicely with my Google account. All my calendars, contacts, emails were all available in Outlook just as if I was still back in my corporate life, using Exchange.

And if you’re a power user, Outlook is a lot more than just an email program. But I was trying to encourage people to use Google Apps for their email so I thought I had better walk the walk. I thought I’d try to give it a go for a couple of weeks, just to prove you can, then come back to Outlook.

But I never came back. I have used Gmail ever since and it has made my email life so much easier. Labels are far more powerful than folders, searching is just incredibly fast and it just works.

Apologies for stealing “it just works” from Apple, but the Mac Mail client is just plain horrible so I really don’t think it can make that claim this time.

Anyway, enough of that Gmail / Outlook malarkey. What about Word, Excel and PowerPoint?

Ready to get started? Actually, no…

I’m going to stop using them.

Instead, I’m going to start using the documents capabilities in Google Drive more. I’ve had a few documents and spreadsheets in there for ages, I know it works and is capable of far more than I need.

One of my first tasks has been to switch over to two-step verification on my Google account. If you use Google, you should switch too. And I know I should have done it a year ago, but please remember to do as I say, not as I do.

So, here goes. Will I make it all the way through February? We shall see, and I will keep you posted along the way.

Apart from anything, I’d really like an excuse to get a Chromebook